Petra's Journey
by LongLost10
Summary: Petra's last days at Ground School and first days at Battle School are explored.  Each chapter can be read on their own.
1. The Journey

Petra walked the corridors of the building, two International Fleet (IF) soldiers flanking her on either side. It had been four days since her father walked her to the SUV and she had said goodbye to her family, unsure of when she would see them again. Part of her had wanted to turn around and run back to her mother, refuse to leave and let her parents raise their five year old daughter the way they were supposed to. Instead, she took a deep breath and walked forward, almost excited to go up to Battle School.

But according to the men, Battle School was still a little while away. She had to go through Ground School for a few days, to go through further evaluation. But it was more than just doctors poking the kids accepted to the program. It was getting their launch group onto the same level, academically, and teaching them about the on-goings of Battle School. It was her last day in Ground School and she had been pulled out of class to visit the medical ward to go through her last round of tests. She knew the layout well enough that the touch on her shoulder by one of the soldiers was unnecessary. She knew that they had arrived at the medical ward.

She walked in and jumped on to the table with only some slight difficulty. It wasn't nearly as bad as when she first came here; she only struggled because she was short and ignored the step stool at the base of the table. The teachers had started all the kids in the gym, to prepare them for the zero-G environment the best they could while they were landside. It worked muscles that many kids didn't even know they had and after the first few sessions, left many kids lying in their bunks, groaning in pain.

The two IF soldiers stood at attention by the door, watching Petra sit on the table, who stared right back at them. Whenever they were separated from the main group of students, the kids were paired up with two IF soldiers. The soldiers always changed so a friendship could not be built. According to the IF, they were precious cargo- kids who one day would save the world from the bugger invasion. Petra wasn't exactly sure what she thought about the bugger invasion. Only that she half hoped that it wouldn't happen during her lifetime. She was fine with studying in space until she was in her twenties, and then to work on spaceships for the rest of her life. Or whatever they had planned.

A doctor walked in, looking at his clipboard- not even making sure he was in the right room or who sat on the table in from of him. It didn't really surprise her at all. There weren't too many kids at Ground School at a time and never sent more than one to the medical ward at a time. "Your DNA test came back… female." The doctor said, still not looking. Petra flushed with anger and embarrassment as the man continued. "Major Anderson was convinced of some foul play on the test." He said, looking through the papers on the clipboard.

"Just because I wear my hair short does not categorize me as male." She said through almost grit teeth. "It only confirms the fact that you are idiots for not believing me. You would think I know whether I'm male or female. You saw my test scores. I'm not stupid." She spat at the man. Petra knew that the various test results attached to the clipboard were the tests that she took to get admitted to the program and the results from the monitor she wore on the back of her neck for years. Every word she spoke, every piece of music she heard, every movie about man-eating robots that she watched (mainly because of her father), the IF heard and saw as well. They analyzed everything, along with written tests, and placed her into the Battle School program. Those tests told them, she knew, that she was anything but stupid.

Despite her verbal lashing, the soldiers and the doctor stood silent, as if it never occurred. Even though there were no visual signs of annoyance from the three men, it made her feel a little bit of satisfaction. After a minute of the silence, the doctor walked over to the counter, put on a pair of rubber gloves. After looking around the room briefly, he crossed to a second counter and grabbed a needle before coming to her side. He rolled up her sleeve and gave her an injection without a glance at her face or hesitation. "Flu shot." He said gruffly as she watched the clear liquid enter her skin. She did not flinch or cry, although her hands gripped the table a little when he had stuck the needle into her skin. She wasn't sure that she trusted the doctor's word that it was a flu shot, but he did tell her the details of every other shot she got when she asked. So it might really be just what he said. A flu shot. When he was done, he took the needle out of her skin and put it in the trashcan. He walked over to the counter and looked at his watch. The doctor finally made eye contact with the child in front of him before continuing. "You are not allowed to eat for the next 20 hours. Your launch is scheduled for 0900. Good luck in Battle School." The doctor said; his face and voice emotionless. Without another glance towards Petra, the doctor turned on his heel and left.

With that, Petra was left alone once more with the two soldiers, who had saluted the doctor before he exited the room. They said nothing and did nothing so she jumped off the table and headed back to her classroom. Even though they were not right by her side this time, she could hear their footsteps behind her as she reached up and turned the handle of the door. She opened it and walked into the classroom, watching as everyone turned to see her enter. It wasn't her fault, she knew, it was just anyone's reaction to see who entered the door when it was opened.

She felt all 38 eyes on her as she walked back to her seat at the front of the room. She silently cursed her surname, Arkanian, as the kids were assigned to sit at desks in alphabetical order. It wasn't the students' idea; the teacher said it was all military. Speaking of which, the only person who didn't look at her was the teacher, who decided to scold the class for getting distracted. All 20 kids in the class were boys… except for Petra. She was the only girl and was told by nearly every official or teacher she saw, that she would be less than the minority. There weren't too many girls in Battle School, only about a handful and it didn't surprise Petra that much. Her mother was a child person- she loved having the neighborhood kids over, and from what Petra saw of the other girls, they were weak, shy and hesitant. While she vaguely understood the shy factor, the other two traits that excluded most girls from Battle School were foreign to her. But that didn't mean that she wasn't insulted and embarrassed that they had to genetically test her for her gender.

She sat down at her desk and started working on the assignment on the screen to catch her up with the rest of the class. It was a mix of an English and history assignment. They were analyzing what would have happened to Greece had Caesar not been killed. Her small fingers flew over the keyboard, typing in Middle English, per the teacher's request. As she worked on the assignment in front of her, she glanced around the room for ideas even though she knew nothing in the room would help her. The room was less than plain and did not even come close to looking like a classroom for kids their age. There were no shooting stars or turtles or underwater creatures on the walls, nothing playful hanging from the ceiling and no toys on the ground. It was painted cream colored with a tile ceiling. Hanging from one tile was a pencil that one of the kids had thrown up, as if to prove they knew how to calculate the trajectory of the pencil.

Petra knew the idiot just threw it at the ceiling.

Since it was their last lesson and none of them could eat until they got to Battle School, they worked well past the normal hour. It was really just to keep the kids amused, busy and out of the staff areas of Ground School. The time passed in silence as the kids finished their extra work begrudgingly. They honestly didn't mind it, but no student enjoys doing busy work. Finally when time was up, the teacher finished the lesson with a lecture. As soon as the teacher started to finish up, all the kids shut down their desks and stood up, ready to go. The teacher called their attention and told them to sit down, annoyed at the disobedience. The kids chattered mindlessly for a few seconds before the teacher lost their patience and barked at them, "Attention!" Petra looked up at the teacher, bored. She was not talking, merely going over multiplication tables in her head. In the time it took the teacher to lose their patience, Petra made it to 15. The teacher stood rather uptight at the front of the room, looking down at the children. "If you don't get your act together and start behaving, you will all get iced within your first few minutes of Battle School."

A boy raised his hand and spoke. "What does it mean to get iced?"

The teacher glared at the boy for speaking out of turn, but said nothing. "Sent back home. Sent landside. It's not something to be proud of." The teacher said with their voice barely above a growl. "In your lockers are your uniforms, you should wear them tomorrow. If you're late to the shuttle, we won't wait for you. And use the toilet before you leave, we don't want any accidents up there in zero-G. If you piss your pants, you get to clean it up." The teacher warned them. There was some slight laughter but a combination between the glare of the teacher and the dismissal bell silenced them.

The kids walked back to the barracks in small clusters, except for Petra who walked by herself. Since she was the only girl in a room full of boys, she was immediately isolated from the rest of the group. And the teachers didn't even have to help them along with the process. They all entered the room and were pulled to their beds. It was a kid sized room, with ten sets of bunk beds. Petra got no special treatment for being a girl and slept with the boys- when they got up to space, boys and girls would be treated equal… or well, more so than they were in Ground School. And anyway- there weren't enough girls to always give them separate barracks.

She didn't mind too much, if at all. At the moment they all looked the same on the outside and she had nothing to hide from the boys. Sure, at first seeing their privates all the time caught her off guard (as most boys slept naked), but by now she was nearly used to the sight. And it wasn't like the boys were ashamed of it either- they went around naked proudly, as if that was what made them the best, not their intellectual talents.

Petra climbed up onto her bunk, the lower bunk by the door, and opened up her desk. There were many things to do on it but most of them were moronic and effortless to win. For the emotional kids, there was a diary application where one could "write out thoughts and feelings that are unable to be expressed aloud" or however the teachers described it to them. It made no sense to her. None of them were being taken to Battle School because they had feelings they couldn't describe. She opened up a card game and started to play to kill time until lights out when she heard voices that were clearly meant for her.

"Hey Petra!" It was one of the boys she knew as Faxon stood in the aisle and was looking at her. She tried to ignore the boy but he was too loud and annoying to completely tune out.

She looked up and sent a sneer in his direction. "What do you want Faxon? I'm not wiping your ass if that's what you're going to ask. However, if you want someone to change your diaper, I'm sure one of the teachers would love to do that for you."

Boys around Faxon laughed at him but didn't applaud her or smile at her. She just gave, never getting credit for anything she did. But she could see the anger in the other boy rise, and she knew whatever he was going to say was just an empty insult because she spoke back first. But he should have known- she had a reputation of having a sharp tongue. "Why don't you just go home? You know, before they waste so much money by sending you up into space. That way we can have more boys up there that will actually do something with the Battle School education?" Of course the ignorant pig would play the gender card. "Just quit while you're ahead. This isn't going to end well for you if you go. You'll get your ass kicked daily." Faxon's words got laughter, just as hers, but this time it was more because Faxon was picking on the one who always gets picked on. It was like a sick little sport.

She placed her desk on her bed and stood up, bringing out jeers and laughter from the other boys. "We'll see what happens when we get up in space, Faxon. Here, you're all talk. But we all know the teacher was talking to you when he talked about people pissing their pants in the shuttle." The laughter broke out again and the lights shut off. Only a few dim lights placed along the ceiling. It was lights out- bed time. "Sleep tight, Faxon. Don't forget to let the buggers bite." She said through grit teeth.

Faxon turned and walked away, singing as he went. "Mother Petra, she talking, she talking!" Other voices in the darkness joined in. "Shit talking, shit talking!" There was another round of laughter, and then silence. She glared at the dark barracks before climbing under the covers herself. She would prove herself to the rest of her launch group and the teachers. She would show them that just because she was female didn't mean she was weak or inferior.

Now, dreams usually told one of their subconscious. They could be analyzed to tell someone what was wrong with them and what they were thinking of even unconsciously. They were deep and meaningful and could make a better person if they were understood properly. They could show a memory from the past to help the person realize a goal in life or help fix some morals that were previously lost in their memory. Petra's dreams were strange, Picasso-like and confusing.

So, naturally, she chose to ignore them.

The next morning, she woke up with the lights still dimmed. She had no idea why she was awake so early, but the small pain in her stomach told her it was either the 20 hour fast or the nerves about the launch that was to take place later that morning. She didn't have to wait long for the lights to turn on properly and the others started to sleepily wake up. She grabbed her towel and slipped out of her bed, walking down the hall to the showers. She entered a stall, turned on the water and let it carry her worries about the day and life ahead down the drain.

When she was done she wrapped her towel around herself and walked back to the barracks, without a word. She changed in silence, her back to everyone else. While she didn't care she was bunking with a bunch of boys, she didn't have to stare at the reason they were boys while she changed. She quickly changed into her uniform, hating it immediately. It was a plain light blue one-piece that hung on her body, a feeling she wasn't used to. She wanted the feeling of tightness, something that hugged her shape a bit better. After a few minutes, a teacher came by to tell the slower kids to hurry up, as they were leaving soon. Apparently the kids were allowed to sleep in a little later because they did not have to eat breakfast this morning.

A few minutes later they were all walking in silence to a car that would take them to the spaceport. Some of the launches were televised, to show the public the brave students headed off to Battle School. But they were not one of those launches, so when they got to the spaceport, they were driven right out to the tarmac where the shuttle was waiting. No fancy accommodations, just military precision and efficiency. They got out and looked, almost awe-struck at the craft that was to take them into orbit before a teacher came and shouted for them to follow.

As the group of kids followed the man into the shuttle in silence, Petra's mind went into overdrive, looking at everything and getting as much information out of it as she could. It wasn't much, just the basic details of everything- what looked like the pilot's cabin, the bathroom and storage rooms. But soon as they entered the passenger area of the shuttle she focused immediately on only one thing in peculiar. Every surface was carpeted as if it were the floor. She was confused, but only for a moment before she remembered that, after all, they were headed to space. Gravity wouldn't apply to them in space, not until they got to Battle School where they had their own, artificial gravity.

They walked in and sat down in the bucket seats as the teacher walked to the front of the passenger area, looking at them all, almost proudly. "Today as you all go to Battle School, remember everything you've learned here. Remember that earth's future depends on you doing well and that failure is never an option." The teacher's words seemed to echo in their ears, and the pressure finally settled on their shoulders. Petra could almost swear she felt the physical weight of it. She tried to think herself out of it- the bugger invasion wouldn't even happen until she was long dead.

There was a silence and the only sound that could be heard were engines starting to roar to life. They stared at the teacher before they spoke in a commanding voice, "But now it is my time to leave and let you in the hands of Captain Brennen." The teacher walked out of the cabin and closed the door as they waited in silence for a Captain Brennen to come in and talk to them. Instead screens appeared in the headrest in front of them that started playing some propaganda movie. It was as if they hadn't seen every propaganda movie a million times over.

Petra ignored it and instead buckled herself into the seat. The strap had been designed so it held them firmly in place at the shoulder, waist and crotch. By the time she found all the straps, the propaganda had stopped playing and directions on how to strap themselves had come on the screen. She waited as the others buckled themselves and before long, the rockets outside roared to life and they took off. There were no windows, but she envisioned the small shuttle rocketing out into orbit. Despite everything that she knew about shuttles, about how long they've been in use, about how high their reliability rate was… she couldn't help but hope that this launch wasn't the first to fail since the first days of the shuttle.

But they were pressed into the back of their seats until a final moment that everything went dead silent. The thrusters were turned off and they drifted for a moment before there was a small hiss and a man floated into the compartment. He hooked his feet into some handholds above them and stood, staring at them as if they were crazy. "You all look positively stupid sitting on the ceiling." The man flipped around, hooking his feet to handholds and look at them from different points on the walls and ceiling before settling before them on the ground. The reorientation was too much for someone, as she heard a gagging sound come from behind her. The idea of not eating before the launch made sense, puking in no-G would be ugly.

"Welcome to space, kiddos. I'm Captain Brennen. We'll be docking in a little bit… Battle School isn't too far out of Earth's orbit. However, since Battle School is on Eastern Standard Time, we will have to work hard to get you guys in the right place, mentally." Petra nodded slightly. Battle School was on American time. Florida time, because back in the first years of space travel, that was where everything was located. With most of the launch being from countries in the Middle East, the time shift would be difficult. Not impossible, but more annoying than anything. "We're going to dock, go to the gym, work out and then visit the barracks. There you will take a nap. We'll wake you up after a while to get food and then to go back to the gym. We will manage to get you on Battle School time soon enough." Brennen gave them all an oddly cheery smile.

She thought out the plan that the teachers had decided they would execute to get their bodies onto Battle School time. They wanted them to get exhausted at the gym, sleep a little and then work out more to sleep through the Battle School night. It seemed like a good plan, exhausting, but good. She looked up to see Brennen still talking, this time it sounded a bit more military, a bit more formal. It was just the speech to scare the little kids going up to big bad Battle School. The only part that she actually took notice of was when he said that their launch colors were Red, Brown, Green. She rolled her eyes. It sounded like they looked into a toilet and picked out colors.

When the speech was over, Brennen flipped back up and disappeared once more, the kids broke out in excited chatter. Petra stayed silent with her thoughts until the sound of more rockets quieted the group. They were landing and even though they couldn't see it, they wanted to hear and feel it. And honestly, it didn't sound or feel special at all- it just happened. Brennen came out of nowhere and told them to unbuckle themselves and follow him out to the gym. The boys followed excitedly, as the gym back at Ground School was fun for them, it was a place of play, not work. Petra followed along, knowing at the moment they entered the gym.

She was just as strong as anyone, but the boys were stronger than her. They just were, and it didn't matter much, as she bested them in other areas. But the boys liked to brag about how much they could dead-lift. The hallways were empty and very clean as Brennen led them through the Battle School for the first time. They didn't have to try too hard to walk down the hall; the gravity was lighter out here than it was in the shuttle and on Earth. It was a little fun and a bit more interesting than Petra would have thought. Eventually, the group slid down a pole and landed in a room that was clearly a gym. She felt a little heavier here than in the hallway.

A man came out and started talking about how they were to act in the gym and how they used certain equipment. It was all introductory stuff that no one wanted to hear or say, but had to anyway. Something that made her grin inwardly was the lack of weights lying around the gym floor, like there was back at Ground School. Another boy noticed this and raised his hand, asking about it. The trainer smiled knowingly. "This is to help you get in shape for the Battle Room. There is no need for weights. If you start using the ones set aside for teachers, you will be added to a list and be that much closer to getting iced."

The rest of the speech went on in silence and then the trainer let them go at the gym. Their heart rate needed to be at a certain number and Petra soon tuned into how hard she needed to work to get it there. It wasn't too difficult a process, but the gym in Battle School lost the appeal that the Ground School gym had. There, they could wrestle and use weights… basically whatever they wanted, as long as they didn't hurt themselves. Here, they had rules they had to follow, which made the whole thing a bit more tedious. But this time, Petra excelled as they had to work on cardio for the Battle Room, it was not a matter of how much muscle you had (well, not completely), but instead how agile and toned.

They stayed for just about two hours, running on treadmills, doing pull ups, pushups, cycling, whatever came to mind and whatever caught their interest. The trainer watched them, telling them when their heart rate was too low, or when they were pushing themselves too hard. Petra didn't know how the man knew their heart rates, as they weren't attached to any equipment, but the tablet thing he carried seem to get the information and display it to the trainer. By the end of it, they were all exhausted, even Petra who went longer than any of the boys, pushing herself harder.

Brennen slid down the pole and looked at the exhausted launch group that stood before him. Petra did a quick evaluation of the man. Sure, she didn't know much about him, but the way he held himself and the way he spoke to the launchies gave her the impression he was new at this. He was too relaxed for a Captain of the International Fleet. The petty soldiers from Ground School were better than this guy. As she watched, he started joking with a few of the boys closest to him. She mentally scoffed. He had no idea what he was doing, how he was supposed to act. He was supposed to act as a teacher, not a friend. She wasn't here to make friends, she was here to excel and be the best soldier she could be.

Either way, Brennen finally straightened up. "Alright, everyone. Follow me please." He said with that stupid grin on his face. Brennen took off at a run and the group struggled slightly to keep up. After a two hour work out, they didn't have too much energy to jog after an adult who took strides longer than theirs. Once they reached the right room, Brennen allowed them to walk inside and choose bunks. While others argued where they wanted to sleep, Petra knew what she wanted, so she chose one in the middle, where she could clearly see the doorway and the back of the room.

When the lights turned off, Petra laid down on her bunk, letting her muscles throb in pain. Brennen's voice ruined the silence. "I'll be back in a few hours. Sleep well." With that, the door closed and they were encased in darkness. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, getting herself to relax properly for once. She reflected briefly on her extremely short time in Battle School. She didn't get iced for not following the rules, she kept up with her launch group and even excelled where others failed. She thought of her father, who saw her off to the car that took her to Ground School. Her heart yearned to be in his arms once more, but she knew she was here for a purpose. And she was going to show them all that they didn't make a mistake by choosing her. While others worried about whether they would make a name for themselves in Battle School, Petra was sure by the time she finished her education, everyone on Earth would know the name Petra Arkanian.


	2. The Battle Room

Petra didn't think that she slept that well. There were images of her mother and her friends continually swimming through her dreams, a whimper occasionally escaping her mouth. When she woke up from the sound of her own voice, she also heard others crying out softly for their parents… siblings… she might have even heard a cry for a dog as she was sure that "Buddy" was not the name of a human. When she woke up for the final time though, it was anything but pleasant.

Her dream was interesting enough that she didn't want to wake up at the time. She had been captaining a space shuttle and was flying through space, taking orders from her commander though a headset. They had been planning an attack on a squadron coming from sector 584-2-391and were coming up on the sun. They were going to use a planet's gravity to accelerate them around the bright star and finally attack the buggers on the other side. But something suddenly went wrong with her steering. She was losing control fast and was screaming into her headset for her commander to get a technician patched to her or something as she accelerated into the sun.

Her commander's voice crackled over the headset she wore. "Attention soldiers!" The phrase was repeated until the voice started to sound increasingly more familiar. It didn't take long until she knew who her commander was. She opened her eyes to hear Brennen walking up and down the aisle, eyes staring at the metal wall that was against her bed. "Wake up! It's time to go back to the gym, then we'll get some dinner."

Other groans were heard from all around her- apparently the boys didn't like the prospect of going back to the gym… or maybe just waking up was hard for them. She sat up and rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands and jumped off the bed as Brennen started to lead the group out of their bunk. Unsurprisingly, when they entered the gym and got started, they moved slower and awkwardly as they attempted to get their heart rates up to the appropriate levels. They were all tired from leaving earth, spending hours in the gym and then the normal grumpiness that came with waking a child from their nap.

It didn't surprise her when the trainer and Brennen kept making coming over to individuals, tapping on their shoulder and telling them to work harder or they'd be iced. Petra wasn't even surprised when they tapped on her shoulder once or twice. She was probably at enough risk for being iced just by being a girl, so she pushed herself a little harder to run that extra mile on the treadmill she was on.

"Once you get into an army, you'll have multiple traning sessions a day." Brennen's voice echoed through the gym at one point. "If you can't do this, then you'll have no hope of making it in Battle School or the IF. I thought they trained your pathetic asses at Ground School. How can you think you're cut out for the Battle Room if you can't keep up your heart rate, Hornsby? And what about you, Bhatia? You're a failure! Keep moving or get out!" His voice was strong as he snapped at a list of boys and a scowl was plastered on his face. Petra wondered if he was doing this for show, an act that all the launch leaders had to do to 'strengthen' the kids or if he was just a jerk that was forced into a position no one wanted, like she thought before.

The rest of the workout passed in very near silence, everyone working alone and vigorously, not wanting to be told off by the trainer or Brennen. When they all trudged off to the cafeteria for dinner, no one really looked at their teacher despite the friendly smile and persona that had come back to him. He stopped them when they reached the mess hall doors. "Now, you all have to palm yourself into the cafeteria. They'll give you the right amount of food designed to optimize your performance in the Battle Room."

One by one, each child put their hand onto the transparent looking slip of thin plastic on the wall. Petra put her hand up and watched as the film turned a soft shade of green before returning to the normal transparency. She took her hand away and walked in, surveying the room briefly before joining her fellow launchies in the lunch line. It was a decent sized room with a scoreboard that took up most of a wall.

It was the scoreboard, actually, that attracted her eye the most. It was clearly a listing of individual students and their place in some sort of competition. She watched as two pictures on the left side of the board started to blink- a lion and a spider. Maybe the two teams were playing the game now? Wait, no… not teams, Petra thought as the lunch lady put a spoonful of peas onto her plate, they were armies just like the ones they were told they were going to join in Ground School. And the people featured up on the scoreboard? They were soldiers. As she turned around to the table where the rest of her launch group sat, eating their meal and laughing at whatever was going through their little heads, she realized they were not soldiers… not even close.

They were kids, mere children. She didn't know when that change would occur and as she heard the jokes her 'peers' told, she wondered if it would ever come to them. Except that she would become a soldier. More than that- she'd become a commander. Her launch group would follow her one day, whether they knew it now or not.

Granted, that was assuming that she could even become a soldier.

She soon found out that all the launch groups were combined in their classes, all the students as bright and clever as her for the first time in her life. Some were even smarter and brighter than her, constantly making her feel incompetent in class.

There was one boy in particular that caught her eye. He was a brilliant boy- it didn't take a Battle School student to realize that. He always liked to analyze the teacher's question instead of simply answering it, causing a few students to groan when the teacher made them all think deeper about the question he previously asked. He always, intentionally or not, complicated things for the rest of the class.

She soon found out that his name was Dink Meeker and after talking to him for a while, she decided that he was a decent enough person... even if he liked to over think simple problems. This was quite evident after their second meeting after a geometry class. She had knocked her book off of her desk after class and as she bent down to grab it, someone's foot knocked it halfway across the room. Giggles and hushed laughter spread through the room like wildfire as she got up and forced her way across the current of students heading towards the door.

Once the crowd thinned enough, she broke free to see Dink holding her text book with a small smirk on his face. "Are you looking for this?" He asked her, offering out the book.

Petra reached forward, a little hesitant and took the book from his grasp, expecting him to pull some stunt that meant he would have the book in the end. But he didn't. He kept smiling even after she held the book tight to her chest, wondering what came next. "Thanks." She said quietly.

"Personally, I don't think you need it." He said walking past her. He sent a charming smile back to her and she found herself following the boy out the classroom, wanting him to say more. "Knowledge isn't only from textbooks; it's from experiences and from implemented knowledge of other subjects."

She had the momentary urge to roll her eyes at Dink's words. Anyone who had any smarts about them knew that textbooks were only the tip of the iceberg. She even had a right to argue that if you didn't learn anything outside of books, you'd be even worse off than not learning from books at all. "If you're trying to be all wise and knowledgeable, you're failing horribly." She said, her tone of voice aiming to kill.

His arrogant smirk flickered for a moment- it was as if she had hit a nerve. Dink did seem like the person who thought relatively highly of himself, even if he didn't like to attract attention to himself. "We're all smarter than the teachers. We don't have to play to their game… whatever they're preparing us for."

"Dink, don't lecture me about the Bugger War. I haven't known you that long and I don't care as much as you about the politics." She said with a sigh. "I'm here to become a good solider for whatever reason I need to be." Petra had really no idea what coming to the Battle School meant for her future other than a really good education and a career in the military. She was going to be the best damned solider ever to go through the school- for whatever reason the IF needed her.

Sure, she'd draw the line about what she'd fight for if she could… but she generally didn't care. It just had to be for her benefit.

The boy stopped walking- she didn't realize they had reached his bunk, meaning that hers wouldn't be too far ahead of them. "Isn't that the thing, though?" He asked her. "You're assuming that they have a reason to use you."

Petra stared at Dink for a moment, genuinely curious about what he was talking about when he heard her name being called from down the hall. Brennen was at the door of their bunk, shouting at her. "Petra Arkanian! Get your ass to the barracks! We are not going to be late for our first session in the battle room because you like to chit chat!"

She looked over towards Dink and the small glint in his eye, muttering "We'll talk later" before jogging off towards her barracks. Despite Brennen's tongue lashing, when she walked into the room she saw that most of the boys were still changing. Petra sighed slightly; there was no need for him to go off on her like that. Just because she was a girl didn't mean she took forever getting ready. She opened her locker and pulled out the space suit like uniform.

This was the second time that she had held the flash suit; the first was on her first day when they finally learned to open their lockers. She had never seen something like it before, which didn't really surprise her as Battle School was full of things she had never seen. As she pulled on the flash suit, she clipped the Dao into its holder and her memory flashed back to when they had first learned about it.

"_This is your Dao, it's usually attached to your flash suit so you don't lose it, and you'll put it on your suit when you get back to the barracks." The last part of Brennen's words was clearly an order so the group responded a mumbled "yes sir". He went on lecturing them about the functions of the buttons along the gun and what each what did. Petra was only half paying attention as he droned on. _

_Afterwards, a few of the boys were in the hallway, pretending to shoot each other with their guns, despite them not working anywhere but in the battle room._

"_Bam! Bam! Bam! I've got you!"_

"_No you didn't, your flash gun didn't go off."_

"_It's a flash pistol, you dumbass."_

_Petra rolled her eyes. "It's called a Dao. And they don't work in the halls- only in the battle room. Don't you boys listen?"_

"_Mother Petra, she talking she talking!"_

"_Shit talking! Shit talking!"_

She hated that mantra.

Petra sighed and got in line behind the rest of her launch group. It was the natural order of things after the first few days. They had voted for their chief officer, a boy named Berk, and he was always first in line. Then the rest of the boys would line up behind him and no matter where Petra stood, she was always elbowed to the end of the line. So at this point, she just assumed her place as the last person as the line started to move.

She had a love/hate relationship with her position in the back of the line. While the others looked down on her, and judged her, she got to observe them and spot their weaknesses. For example: Berk, while very social and as intelligent as the rest of them, struggled to come up with ideas on the spot.

Faxon ended up being more bark than bite which, when she figured it out, made her smirk whenever he started the mantra of "Mother Petra". Because of this little hint of knowledge, none of his words harmed her anymore. She didn't care enough about him to let them hurt her. Soon enough, the rest of their launch group would realize that he could barely navigate a simulated spacecraft though an asteroid ring, and he'd lose whatever social "power" he had over a part of their launch group.

Before she knew it, they were in a part of the Battle School none of them had ventured before. They had gone up a few ladders where the gravity got weaker and the number of students decreased. They were at the point that Petra was putting almost no energy into her steps yet she was bounding farther than ever. Soon though, they came to a hallway with a dead end and Brennen stopped them. A few kids peered around each other, trying to see what was behind their teacher. Petra got a glance and to her, it just seemed like a solid wall- they must have had taken a wrong turn somewhere. It was Battle School, after all. There were so many twists and turns, she barely knew the halls that surrounded the launchy barracks.

"You are about to enter the Battle Room. This is a main component of Battle School and if you can't get your bearings in there, you might as well tell me after this session so I can send you home. If you fake your way through this, you're going to be iced the minute you enter an army and things get real." Whenever Brennen used the word 'iced' the group always got silent and it wasn't hard to understand why. Not only were careers on the line in Battle School, but reputations as well. No one could return to Earth after being iced and walk around with their head held high.

There was another boy who used to be in their Languages class. He was a decent kid, fairly smart for a Battle School student and got along with mostly everyone. Then he disappeared. By listening to conversations at the lunch tables, Petra found out that he hadn't been turning in his work for most of his classes. Apparently back home, he got by because the teachers knew he was smart and he could charm most of his teachers to letting him pass without much work. If you tried that in Battle School, you got iced.

And once you got iced, you didn't come back.

So when Brennen mentioned being iced, they took it seriously. Luckily for them, he didn't wait long to continue talking. "When you get in there, I want you to reach the far wall and wait there. I'll be right in to start you on the basics of the Battle Room. Who can think of something we'll cover today?"

There was a tense silence. No one really knew what the Battle Room was like. Sure, they heard stories, but how believable were they? There was one tale she heard from the talks after lights out, that things were shot out of the walls at them while they ran around, trying to distract them and make them unable to carry out their objective.

"I guess you'll see then." Brennen palmed a touchpad much too high for any of them to reach on their own and the wall behind him turned transparent. Without a word, he turned and walked away down the hall and out of sight, leaving them on their own.

The line started to lose its shape as the group of kids crowded around the opening to the Battle Room and looked in. It was a brightly lit space with nothing inside it. It seemed to be nearly three stories high with what looked like handholds all over the walls. There didn't seem to be a space without them- even the corners had holds until the walls converged.

"Someone go in." A boy said in a quiet voice. Petra looked into the room with her head cocked to the side slightly. No one wanted to be the first one. Berk was pushed forward, but stopped himself before he actually passed through the doorway. She sighed- boys.

She rocked on the back of her heels for a second before sprinting forward, closing her eyes as she neared the barrier. She wasn't sure what she expected from the transparent wall, but she wasn't sure she wanted to see it for herself. Except the moment she passed through, her feet didn't continue to hit the ground. In fact, they left the floor completely. They flew up behind her and over her head. While she didn't open her mouth, in her head she was screaming as she flew across the Battle Room.

Every time her body was upside down, she'd see her launch group in the doorway, either laughing or cheering at her attempt of getting to the opposite wall. But she couldn't focus on them anymore- she was nearing the far wall and she needed to figure out how to stop herself. She moved her head back and her feet forward, slowing down the speed at which she fell head over heels. Soon enough she oriented herself as if she were back in the hallway and managed to grab a handhold on the far wall.

She could see the others slowly coming into the room, unsure how to propel themselves to where she was without spiraling in about forty different directions. A few took off and ended up spinning just as radically as, or worse than, she did. Another group seemed to be trying to swim their way across. A small handful just kept to the handholds, pulling themselves across the long room to get to the far wall.

After a few minutes, they were all lined up on the far wall, watching Brennen come in from the entranceway, floating effortlessly as if he were being pulled to them. Suddenly, he stopped in midair. She noticed a small black box in his hand- that must be what gave him such grace in the room.

"So." His voice was stony again. He was in teacher mode. Commander mode. In the hall, they were students, in this room they were soldiers. This was why they were in Battle School… this was what they were all dreaming about in their classes. "Did anyone realize that there was no gravity in here?"

There were murmured agreements throughout the group.

"Let me repeat myself. Did anyone realize that there was no gravity in here?"

"Yes sir."

Brennen nodded and looked at all of them, his eyes lingering on Petra for only a moment longer than the others. "We're going to do the basics today. Moving and shooting. Maybe we can do them at the same time, if you guys can act as if you've already been potty trained." His voice was calm and steady now. "How do you think we can move in this situation? Remember what you know about gravity." He asked them.

A voice came from the other end of the line from a voice she didn't recognize right away. "You have to be pushed or pulled. You can't use your own momentum."

"Close. But here we are going to be forced to use our own momentum, our own energy. How can we do that?"

Berk spoke up a few spots away from Petra. "Use other things to push off against. Like the wall." She watched Brennen's fingers graze the box in his hand and he drifted towards the wall. He grabbed on a handhold and heads stuck out from the line to get a better look at him. He pulled up his legs so that his feet were pressed against the wall. Petra turned her head sideways and it became clearer that he was just squatting on the wall, using the handholds to keep himself oriented a certain way.

Then he pushed off.

He flew across the Battle Room with near precision accuracy and control. He grabbed onto a handhold on the opposite wall and looked at them. "Now you try."

Petra began to orient herself the way she remembered Brennen being oriented, but kept a tight hold on the handholds. Her first trip across the Battle Room made her a little nauseous. She wasn't so inclined to try something that might bring back that feeling- puking in null-G didn't seem like a smart idea. Especially not in a flash suit.

A few people around her pushed off from the wall, a few having a slight rotation, others having an extreme rotation. One or two people didn't push off hard enough and were lazily drifting across the room at what seemed like the slowest pace possible. She tried to quickly replay Brennen's flight in her head before she pushed away from the wall.

She was bee-lining to the opposite wall. She moved her hand to grab out for a distant handhold and she started to slowly rotate. She quickly retracted her hand a little too quickly and started tilting in the opposite direction. Almost with a sigh of defeat, she kept the slight tilt until she reached the opposite wall, grabbing a handhold and orienting herself to align herself up with her peers that made it to the opposite wall.

It took a few minutes for the ones who didn't push off hard enough to get to the wall, but once they did, Brennen floated out in front of them once more. "Good start. Now, do it again. Until everyone can do it perfectly. Let's move!"

It went like that for a while. Flying and reaching the opposite wall, turning around and pushing off in the same style. After a few tries, Petra started to do it mindlessly, letting her thoughts wander as she adjusted her angle so she would avoid others who were flying across the room too.

It seemed like forever, but then Brennen got them to shooting. He gathered them on a wall and threw out some white balls, explaining that they would glow red for about two minutes before returning to their normal color. He took his Dao out of its holster and showed them the function of each button. As opposed to the lecture they got back in the classroom, he took a child and shot the kid with each setting, demonstrating in real time what would happen. After the demonstration was over and they all understood what would happen, he would press something on the box and the kid would return to his normal state.

The one that was the most important was the trigger. It froze the other person and would be the one button that they would really even care about past this moment in the Battle Room. She took her own Dao off of her suit and held it in her hands and pointed it at the ground. She slowly pulled it back and felt the moment that it went over the edge and produced a beam of light. She let her finger relax along that edge, ready to pull.

"The Battle Room keeps track of your shots. I want you guys to be going from wall to wall here. No one should ever be standing completely still. Let's see how you guys do. Ready? Move."

A voice came up from somewhere in their line. "Sir, there are more of us then there are targets."

Brennen's brows furrowed in confusion at the boy's question. "What does it matter? Fight for them! Now move!" He snapped.

They moved.

Petra took off, and with her finger already on the trigger ready to shoot, shot two of the target balls before she even got to the other side. There were a few times she missed, that her elbow wasn't fully extended and she forgot momentarily it was a gun, not a sword. That was the hardest part- training her brain to aim and keep still long enough to let the guns' light hit her target and immobilize it.

After for what seemed like hours, Brennen told them to stop and sent them back to their barracks. Petra put her Dao back onto her suit and launched herself towards the exit. There were lights at the bottom of the perfect square of an exit that told her she had to turn herself to make sure she was oriented the right way for when she entered the hall. She moved her body and soon began a slow rotation to turn herself the correct way.

Petra's feet touched the ground and it took her a moment to remember how to walk. She was so used to, already, launching herself from wall to wall, adjusting for the lack of gravity and pushing off of any object that could be used to achieve their goal. It already seemed like second nature and she knew that she would love her time in that room. She also knew that now they were working as individual soldiers and eventually would have to work as one army unit. But for now it was survival of the fittest. And she would be the fittest.

She followed the few boys in front of her at a distance, her muscles aching as they went to get into the shower and back to their barracks. They passed a clock and the time read 2115. They had about 45 minutes to get ready for lights out and that wasn't too awful… even if with their luck, Brennen would lecture them as they dressed for bed.

There weren't many girls in Battle School, but they had to grow up here, so there were separate bathrooms. So as she undressed, she was alone in the empty bathroom. She put the flash suit in a cleaner so it would be done when she was finished in the shower.

As the hot water ran over her, she thought about her performance in the Battle Room. She had to improve. The flash suit was bulky and uncomfortable to move in at first, making maneuvers hard to carry out. Her Dao... well, she would learn to love it. She liked the idea of the gun, but it'd get some getting used to- just like everything else here.

When she was finished, she grabbed her suit and walked shamelessly back to the barracks. At this stage in her life, the only thing that gave away her gender was the bathroom that she exited and her face. Even though the latter was a hit or miss type of thing. Most of the boys were back when she entered, so she walked right past them and took out a uniform to sleep in. Most of the boys slept in their underwear, or less, but she still liked to have some self respect.

A glance at the clock told her it was almost lights out- it was 21:50. She lay down on her bed and closed her eyes, letting her muscles unwind when a voice barked out. "Scores are out- stand at attention, soldiers!" It was Brennen. Every muscle in her body protested as she slipped off her bed and stood with her hands pinned to her side. "First place with 50 hits: Tyler Bradburn. Second place with 47 hits: Petra Arkanian. Third place with 42 hits: Wang Teng..." Brennen walked down the aisle of kids. If he was by one of the people he named, he put a hand on their shoulder in passing.

He almost made it to her bunk when he finished the list, going up to 10. Then he turned on his heel and left, just as abruptly as he entered. Petra gave a sigh of relief as the lights went out, leaving them in the darkness of the unpredictable Battle School.


	3. Free Play

Free time was like recess. They could do anything their heart desired, within reason, but Petra hated it. The other boys in her launch group had already made their friends and formed their groups and she had no place in there. It made free time a bit boring. She just felt awkward and they weren't all excited to let her in. It wasn't like she excelled at the things they struggled with and they hated her for it, they just didn't get along. Kids make friends and they exclude the others. It's how children their age worked and she didn't really hold it against them.

It had been a few months and she did have friends… they just weren't in her launch group. She wasn't a complete loner and she took pride in that. Weirdly. Along with Dink, Petra started studying with some kids in their astronomy class. Radovan was nice enough, although he often jumped to conclusions and incorrect answers, Owen didn't exactly get the martial right away but worked hard and Hector had a way of daydreaming during their study sessions. Granted, she wasn't much better, always off doodling on the side. Dink routinely had to nudge her elbow to get her to focus.

Normally she'd be off hanging with her friends, but there was a riff in their launch group and Dink warned her to stay away. Boys and their testosterone… she would happily stay far away from the mess. Plus, it was another launch group- they had their own dynamic and they didn't need her butting in.

Instead, she was sitting on her bunk with her back against the wall, holding her desk on her lap, exploring the interface. There were the typical applications such as a text editor, homework submission, even a little journal application where the more emotional kids could vent about their feelings.

On her first day right before lights out, she had opened her desk and opened the virtual journal. She knew the other kids in her launch group expected her to go crying into it. Part of her wanted to ignore it just for that reason, but instead, to remind her why she was in the Battle School, she made a single entry.

_Watch me soar._

Back when she was younger, her father would often lay on his back and pick her up, supporting her on the flats of his feet. She would pretend she was flying, sometimes weightless, dreaming of the Battle School she had heard so much about. One particular occasion came to mind as she sat in her bunk.

_"Mama!" She had cried with joy, pulling her mother from the kitchen where she was baking for both her own family and the neighborhood children. Petra held out her hands and leaned with her dad's feet. "I'm flying!" Her mother enjoyed the smile on her daughter's face and walked over, picking up the small child and lifting her over her shoulders, walking around in a small circle._

_"Look at my little astronaut." Her father sat up and watched his wife and daughter laughing._

_Mother tossed her up slightly and caught her in his eyes. "Like a leaf in the autumn wind." She smiled at Petra, brushing a stray hair out of her grinning face. "My baby girl soaring above the world."_

It was one of her favourite memories from her childhood, along with being one of the earliest, and she kept it close to her heart. Whenever she was in the Battle Room and she was getting picked on by the other boys, she forced herself to remember the memory, reminding herself why she was here.

Petra smiled at the memory as she moved away from the journal application and opened up the lone game on the system. It was a silly fantasy game where the player chose a character and then led it through all sorts of different areas. Each area had different themes and puzzles and it was almost fun. It got boring though, as things got rather predictable fairly quickly. The idea of it was that it would adapt to the player's skills and challenge them based on the program's findings. That was the rumour anyway.

She didn't believe half the rumours here anyway. She couldn't determine how much was truth and how much just scared little kids talking out their ass.

Focusing more on the desk in front of her, she found her character standing on top of a crypt in a cemetery. She didn't remember coming towards the cemetery or even the path that led to it, but it had been a few weeks since she had played the game. Three different characters stood amongst the tombstones which formed a fairly complex maze.

One of the characters, a quirky redheaded girl, looked up at her and shouted. "Zombies and vampires are coming! Tell us where to go! We'll take care of them!"

The second figure, a black haired male looked a bit nervous. "Yeah. I'm full of that good old kamikaze spirit."

"Nick, please." The third voice came from the last character who was wiping his glasses clean. Unlike the other two, who seemed about early high school age, this man seemed a bit older. "Just because this is never going to work doesn't mean we have to be negative."

A loud groan, much like a stereotypical zombie, came from the screen. "Allison! They're by you."

"No, Anthony! They're over on your third."

The figures all seemed to scramble around, not being able to see over the headstones barriers. "Shut up." Her figure's voice was low but commanding. "Three vampires coming up on Nick, take a right and then a left. Allison, second right and you have a zombie-vampire duo. Anthony, straight ahead, two vampires. Move." There was little hesitance in her thought process as the three figures darted off in their respective directions.

Petra held her breath as the characters followed out her instructions. Nick had a little bit of trouble, but that was simply because there were three of them. Anthony proved to be the best natural fighter of the three, but Allison was fairly resourceful.

Soon enough, all the monsters were slain and the characters were doing silly celebratory dances. "Focus." Her character's voice made the three stop in their tracks. "I hear more."

And that was the process. A wave would come, Petra's character would give thought out instructions and the three would carry them out. Between each wave, the time allowed for them to rest and let their health restore became shorter.

"Nick! You have a straggler! Heading right for Allis-" Her character was cut off as something threw her back onto the hard pavement of the mausoleum. A tall figure was standing over her… bearing fangs. Eyes wide, she brought her leg up, kicking him square in the groin before rolling away and dropping off of the building. She didn't land gracefully, but it allowed her to grab a stick off of the ground before clambering to her feet.

Strong arms grabbed her and forced her against the wall of the stone structure, her head instantly overwhelmed with pain as it met the hard material. "Petra! Need a little help here…" Nick's voice was filled with fear as the vampire's grip tightened around her throat. He wasn't the only one who could use a bit of help.

The white fangs gleamed in the moonlight as the vampire's face grew bigger, nearing her throat.

"Mind your back, Allison!" Anthony's words told her that they were taking care of themselves. Or at least that's what it seemed like. With a bit of funky maneuvering, she moved the stick in her hand into a more horizontal position and thrust forward. The vampire gave a theatrical groan, dropping her to the ground and grabbing the stick-wound before bursting into dust.

She got up, coughing slightly from the dust and looked around, on her guard. Nothing seemed to be lurking about so she ran to a nearby tree and started climbing. When she got high enough, she carefully balanced herself on a branch and inched out away from the trunk. After a minute of steeling herself, she jumped, resulting with her chest being slammed against the marble of the crypt. With a sharp breath, she swung her legs over the side and rolled onto the roof before jumping to her feet, surveying the area once more.

Upon looking out to the graveyard, Petra's stomach immediately sank to the bottom of her shoes. The redheaded Allison was lying in a pool of blood only a few shades darker than her hair which seemed to originate from her neck. Nick was slumped up against a gravestone right beside her, his eyes empty and staring at the full moon above them. Anthony was a few yards away, holding his stomach, trying to keep the organs from spilling out. Not that it mattered much anyway. Petra could tell by the look on the older man's face that the time to help him was long over.

The screen grew dark and red words flashed across the center of the screen.

**Game Over**

Petra sighed and exited the game, staring at the desktop with a heavy sigh. It wasn't the first time that she had lost in that section of the alternate reality game before. Despite knowing what's to come, she could never manage to coordinate everyone's movements in a way that let all three computer characters and herself survive the random attacks.

Despite the insane amount of times she had lost and the amount of tears she had shed for them, she couldn't help the amount of mild self-loathing that emerged from the two stupid red words.

A loud noise disrupted her thoughts, causing her to look up off of her desk and towards the front of the room. Brennen stood in the doorway, smiling as if it was his honour to disrupt their leisurely activities. "Play time's over kiddos. Time for dinner." The air was full of excitement as the boys around her jumped off their bunks and started walking in groups. Petra took her time putting away her desk and sliding off her bed. The room was nearly empty by the time she headed towards the door and followed the pattern of red brown green, her mind lost in thought.

The rest of their evening was spent in a classroom for an hour and a half before going to the gym for the last hour. They were given a half hour to shower and change into bed clothes, if they preferred.

Most of the boys didn't.

Back on ground school on the first night Petra spent with the group, she admitted to being a little uncomfortable being naked in front of them. She got undressed under the covers and kept her clothes for the next morning close at hand so she could slip them on quickly before too many eyes strayed her way. Not that she had anything to flaunt, she looked just like any of them for now, but it was something she picked up from her mother.

It took about two nights to beat that decency out of her.

So when most of the boys started stripping for bed, Petra was right there with them, occasionally poking fun at Hendrik's small endowment with those around them. Thankfully, it was not a night which Hendrik would point out that while his was small, he had one at all and that was more than Petra could say. When the lights flashed to give them warning for lights out, Petra crawled into her bed, fairly content with her life in space.

They had been in Battle School long enough that the cries and whimpers for mothers, fathers, siblings and pets were far gone. Now, during lights out, the only sound that could be heard were the soft breath of children and the occasional grunt or snore. Petra's gaze pierced the darkness and drilled a hole into the dark space above her head, willing herself to sleep.

It was harder than expected and she listened to the soft hum of the machine which pumped breathable air into the room for what seemed like hours. When her eyelids finally started to weigh heavily on her, she felt a wave of relief. Waking up tired was not desirable in Battle School.

Her relief was short lived, as dreams came and went throughout the night… and they were terrifying. She refused to let herself wake up so with every nightmare she merely turned over in her bunk and tried again.

One of the most horrifying to her featured the characters from the fantasy game. It was set in the graveyard, same as the game, but instead of commanding the others, they took turns pulling her by chains in different directions. Vampires and zombies would emerge from gravestones and take bites out of her, leaving her full of crevasses and still alive.

Infections would overcome her, limbs would fail but she wouldn't die. The game wouldn't end. Nick took pleasure in literally putting dirt into her open wounds and making her cry out in pain. It was worse when they teamed up. Anthony tied her against a casket that had yet to be buried while Allison flicked matches on her open chest.

"Look." Allison walked towards her in an elegant way, almost like she was moving with the wind. "Puppy's unhappy. She doesn't like pain does she?"

Nick gave a brutal laugh. "It wouldn't be too much of an issue if she could fight back while giving us hate glares." Petra struggled against her restraints as best she could before a gasp of terror came out of her mouth. Anthony was standing above her with a handsaw.

He brought it down in one swift motion and Petra shot up in her bunk, breathing heavily, her blankets thrown into a corner of the mattress. The boy the next bunk over, Luz, was looking at her groggily.

"What?" She snapped, fuelled by fear and the tiniest hint of embarrassment of being seen waking up from a nightmare. They were supposed to be soldiers- nightmares shouldn't affect them anymore.

He gave a small shrug. "You were shouting."

"So that justifies you staring at me?"

"I was waiting to see what you'd say next."

"I'll give you a hint, it's a curse followed by the name 'Luz'." Petra bent forward and grabbed the lump of blanket and worked on getting them untangled.

"I don't doubt it." The blonde boy turned his back on her and let her finish her task in silence.

With a bit of a shaking hand, Petra pulled the blanket over herself once more and closed her eyes tightly. Sleeping wasn't going to be easy tonight, she realized, as she was pulled yet again into the graveyard of her nightmares.

The next morning they were woken up by Brennen and told to put on their flash suits- they were starting their day in the battle room before breakfast. Classes would fill the rest of their day. There was minimal protests as the group got out of bed and slipped on the white suits.

During the process, Petra made eye contact with Luz and steeled herself, ready for anything the other boy could throw at her for the night before. Unsurprisingly, the boy turned to her.

"Your suit is going to fall out of your locker." He pointed at her day suit in the locker and, sure enough, it was seconds from falling.

It caught her by surprise, but she nodded and pushed the suit back into the small compartment before shutting it quickly. Her future self could deal with the suit falling out of the locker. Petra stared at Luz, almost stunned, before a sound managed to come out: "Thanks".

Why didn't he mock her for having a nightmare? One that was so bad she was shouting in her sleep and actually woke up in a cold sweat? Her hand shakily put her dao into its holster.

People were strange.

The day passed smoothly after that, with Petra taking slight pity on Luz, for whatever reason, and sending him small smiles throughout the day. It wasn't much, and it wasn't reciprocated, but it was really the only thing that brought the smile to her face at all that day. Dink was still busy with his launch group so he couldn't eat with her at lunch and classes were fairly boring.

It wasn't that they were easy, she just wasn't invested in it. It didn't catch her attention. It wasn't until they were talking in an astrophysics study session did she start to pay attention.

"Gravity's a funny thing." One of her group members said, clearly trying to avoid the reading on moons that they were assigned. "As soldiers it can easily be both a weapon of great power and our worst enemy."

There was a sigh of exasperation, leading Petra to finally look up from her book. "Ori, give it a break. We're not here to learn about gravity. We're here to learn about how to deal with the absence of it."

Ori put down his pen, clearly they were getting into a discussion. "So as commanders we're only allowed to partake in combat located in open space? What would the buggers say if they attacked tomorrow and the IF said 'Oh I'm sorry, we have to move outside of the solar system… at least by the asteroid belt- do you mind'?" He used a deep voice to imitate the announcer on the IF propaganda vids.

Despite the eye rolls that were sent towards Ori, Petra could see how he had a point. Sure, it wasn't one of their main fields of study (was it even covered at all?), but any weapon is a weapon in the face of battle. "Well, think about it." She said, sitting up a bit more. "We managed to control it on the space stations-"

"Did you even know how to make artificial gravity on a space station?" A rather obnoxious boy, David, asked the two of them. Before either could respond, David continued, his pretentious voice only one aspect which fueled Petra's desire to punch him in the face. "Rotation. Centrifugal forces that pull those inside the station to the outside."

"I know what a centrifugal force is, Dave" Ori snapped. "That's why the Battle School is curved the way it is. I hear once you get into an army, their barracks are so big that you can practically see the curve of the ship right there."

Another boy was about to open his mouth to happily encourage the change of topic but David cut him off. "That's not the point. What Mother Petra here was implying that we could shoot a planet; turn the gravity off at will."

"I didn't-"

"Gravity isn't like the guns we use in the Battle Room-"

"How do you know?" Petra snapped. "We don't know what's being developed. New weapons come out every day. New technology. You don't think the IF, with all their pulls and people working with them, that they can't make something you've never thought of?"

David sighed deeply, clearly reaching his limit. "It's not that I've never thought of it, it's just simply not possible."

Petra gave a look at the boy across the table, asking for the bit of human kindness she found in Luz earlier in the day. "Ori-"

The other boy held up his hands in mock surrender. "Don't pull me into this. I only mentioned that it could be a decent tool to use in battle if it's already there. You're the one who wanted to use it in the form of a weapon." This earned him a hate glare sent in his direction as Petra turned back to David.

"What about the gravity drives on ships? That's a basis for something, right? I don't know the technicality of it but I'm sure it's possible." She said.

"You're completely insane." David muttered, returning his book. "You don't know the technicality of it because it's impossible. If it hasn't been done already, it's not worth it."  
>"Or it's still being developed."<br>"Only in your mind. Which doesn't seem to be on this plane of reality." He muttered, jabbing his paper harder than was probably necessary. "Now shut up with your stupid theories. What did you get for the third problem, Wahhd?"  
>The lights flashed throughout the classroom, signaling the end of the study period. Petra grabbed her book and desk in a single swoop before angrily striding out of the room. As she turned the corner, she could make out the whisper of Ori at the desk: "She's crazy, neh?"<br>"Crazy as a loon, my friend."


End file.
